Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 13 Jan 2005 21:29:05 +0100 | From | Marek Habersack <> | Subject | Re: thoughts on kernel security issues |
| |
On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 11:50:04AM -0800, Chris Wright scribbled: > * Marek Habersack (grendel@caudium.net) wrote: > > On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 03:36:27PM +0000, Alan Cox scribbled: > > > On Mer, 2005-01-12 at 17:42, Marcelo Tosatti wrote: > > > > The kernel security list must be higher in hierarchy than vendorsec. > > > > > > > > Any information sent to vendorsec must be sent immediately for the kernel > > > > security list and discussed there. > > > > > > We cannot do this without the reporters permission. Often we get > > I think I don't understand that. A reporter doesn't "own" the bug - not the > > copyright, not the code, so how come they can own the fix/report? > > It's not about ownership. It's about disclosure and common sense. > If someone reports something to you in private, and you disclose it > publically (or even privately to someone else) without first discussing > that with them, you'll lose their confidence. Consequently they won't > be so kind to give you forewarning next time. I understand that, but I don't see a point in holding the fixes back for the majority of people (since the vendors on vendor-sec are a minority and I suspect that more people run self-compiled kernels on their servers than the vendor kernels, I might be wrong on that). If there is a list that's at least half-open (i.e. invitation required, but no CV required :) then there is no issue of confidence, is there? And with such list, everybody has equal chances - bad, good and the ugly too. Maybe my logic is flawed, but that's how I see it - the linux kernel is a piece of open code, accessible to all, with all its features, bugs, flaws. So, if the code is open, the reports about the code security/bugs should be as open, together with fixes, from the day one of finding the bug. Otherwise, if we have the scenario when the vendor-sec members are informed about a bug+fix 2 months earlier and the vulnerability+fix are disclosed 2 months later, then this is creating a situation where not everybody has equal chances of reacting to the bug. As I wrote earlier, that puts the folks using non-vendor kernels way behind both the vendors _and_ the bad guys - since the latter have both the vulnerability, the fix _and_ (usually) the exploit (or they can come up with it in a matter of hours). For me it's all about equal chances in reacting to the security issues. Again, I might be totally wrong in my reasoning, feel free to correct me.
> > > material that even the list isn't allowed to directly see only by > > > contacting the relevant bodies directly as well. The list then just > > > serves as a "foo should have told you about issue X" notification. > > This sounds crazy. I understand that this may happen with proprietary > > software, or software that is made/supported by a company but otherwise opensource > > (like OpenOffice, for instance), but the kernel? > > Licensing is irrelevant. Like it or not, the person who is discovering > the bugs has some say in how you deal with the information. It's in our > best interest to work nicely with these folks, not marginalize them. It's not about marginalizing, because by requesting that their report is kept secret for a while and known only to a small bunch of people, you could say they are marginalizing us, the majority of people who use the linux kernel (us - those who aren't on the vendor-sec list). It's, again IMHO, about equal chances. More and more often it seems that security advisories and releases are treated as an asset for security companies, not a common good/knowledge. And that's pretty sad...
regards,
marek [unhandled content-type:application/pgp-signature] | |